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As a follow-up to a post where we looked at the most common questions about Django in the Cloud, now, I'd like to help you deploy your Django App on Amazon Web Services and make you more independent from other developers like DevOps and CloudOps Engineers. There are many options for doing that but I'd like to show one of them and I hope that in the end you will be able to deploy your Django App on AWS Lambda using Serverless.
I was motivated by Daniil Bratchenko's article Don’t Let Software Vendors Dictate Your Business Processes to start writing this blog post.
It is so hard to find Software that will fit all your business processes as all companies are unique. This is why many companies have decided to set up dedicated teams building Software for their specific business processes and needs. From my personal point of view, Django App on AWS Lambda using Serverless is a good solution for cases like that.
Also, you can use this approach for prototyping your projects running them at their early stage.
There are a few advantages and disadvantages of using this approach.
Advantages of using AWS Lambdas:
- cost (AWS Lambda is cheaper comparing to AWS EC2);
- simplicity in running and maintaining;
- scalability;
- quick deployment.
the disadvantages:
- AWS Lambda requires some extra time to run your App;
- size limit for deployment package;
- API Gateway limitation (30-sec timeout, 6 Mb response body size);
- it might cost more than AWS EC2 if there are too many requests.
Prepare AWS infrastructure
Probably, you are aware of a variety of AWS services required for web applications. In order to deploy a Django project on AWS Lambdas you should prepare your AWS infrastructure. There is a list of AWS services I use for my Django project:
- Lambdas to run our wsgi application
- API Gateway to handle HTTP request and send them to Lambdas
- S3 buckets for Lambda deployments and storing static files
- CloudFront distribution for serving static files from S3 bucket
- RDS for a database (I use Postgres)
- VPC with subnets
- EC2 for Security Groups
- IAM for roles and policies
- CloudWatch for logs
AWS Lambdas, API Gateway will be created automatically by Serverless. I will try to walk you though the process of creating all the necessary AWS resources in my following blog posts.
Create a Django project
Django startproject
command allows us to create a simple Django project, in addition to that, there are some great Cookiecutter projects that can help you start your project easily (For example Cookiecutter Django). I use default django-admin startproject
cli command in this example.
pip install django
django-admin startproject django_aws_lambda
Configure requirements
There are many options to store your project requirements, for example requirements.txt
, Pipfile
, pyproject.toml
. You can one of these options. I'm using requirements.txt
here.
- create
requirements.txt
file in a root directory of the project - add the following libraries to
requirements.txt
file:
boto3==1.17.17
Collectfast==2.2.0
Django==3.1.7
django-environ==0.4.5
psycopg2-binary==2.8.6
Werkzeug==1.0.1
- create and activate virtual environments
Choose your preferred tool for managing virtual environments (like conda, pyenv, virtualenv, etc.)
- install requirements
pip install -r requirements.txt
Create hello
Django app
- create app using
startapp
Django command
python manage.py startapp hello
- create
templates
folder
mkdir templates
- create
index.html
file intemplates
folder with the following lines:
{% load static %}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Greeting</title>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<h1>Hello {{ name }}</h1>
<img src="{% static 'django.jpeg' %}" alt="Django" style="width: 20%">
</div>
</body>
</html>
create folder
static
in the root directory of the projectmkdir static
add an image file to
static
folder, for exampledjango.jpeg
update
hello/views.py
from django.shortcuts import render
# Create your views here.
def hello(request, resource=None):
return render(request, "index.html", {"name": resource or 'World'})
Configure environments variables:
- create
.env
file in the root directory of the project - configure the following variables:
STAGE='production'
DB_HOST=<your database host>
DB_USER=<your database user name>
DB_PASSWORD=<your database password>
DB_NAME=<your database name>
DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=<some django secret key>
AWS_S3_CDN_DOMAIN=<your Cloud Front distribution, like: `<distribution id>.cloudfront.net`>
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME=<your AWS region>
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME=<AWS s3 bucket for static files with punlic policies>
DEPLOYMENT_BUCKET=<AWS s3 bucket for deployment>
AWS_KEY_ID=<your AWS Key Id>
AWS_SECRET=<your AWS Secret>
DJANGO_ADMIN_URL=<Django admin url>
DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS=<list of allowed hosts separated by coma>
Create configuration for local development and production
- update
settings.py
indjango_aws_lambda
folder with the following lines:
"""
Django settings for django_aws_lambda project.
Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 1.11.29.
For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/topics/settings/
For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/settings/
"""
from pathlib import Path
import environ
ROOT_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve(strict=True).parent.parent
env = environ.Env()
READ_DOT_ENV_FILE = env.bool('DJANGO_READ_DOT_ENV_FILE', default=True)
if READ_DOT_ENV_FILE:
env.read_env(str(ROOT_DIR / '.env'))
# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/howto/deployment/checklist/
# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = env('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY', default='<some-secured-key>')
# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = False
ALLOWED_HOSTS = env.list('DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS', default=['127.0.0.1', 'localhost'])
INSTALLED_APPS = [
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'hello',
]
MIDDLEWARE = [
'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]
ROOT_URLCONF = 'django_aws_lambda.urls'
TEMPLATES = [
{
'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
'DIRS': [
str(ROOT_DIR / 'templates'),
str(ROOT_DIR / 'staticfiles'),
],
'OPTIONS': {
'loaders': [
'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
],
'context_processors': [
'django.template.context_processors.debug',
'django.template.context_processors.request',
'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
'django.template.context_processors.i18n',
'django.template.context_processors.media',
'django.template.context_processors.static',
'django.template.context_processors.tz',
'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
],
},
},
]
WSGI_APPLICATION = 'django_aws_lambda.wsgi.application'
# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/#databases
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
'NAME': ROOT_DIR / "db.sqlite3",
}
}
# Password validation
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators
AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
{
'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
},
{
'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
},
{
'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
},
{
'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
},
]
# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/topics/i18n/
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'
TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'
USE_I18N = True
USE_L10N = True
USE_TZ = True
# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/howto/static-files/
STATIC_ROOT = str(ROOT_DIR / 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [str(ROOT_DIR / 'static')]
STATICFILES_FINDERS = [
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
]
MEDIA_ROOT = str(ROOT_DIR / 'media')
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
ADMIN_URL = env('DJANGO_ADMIN_URL')
- create
local.py
andproduction.py
files insidedjango_aws_lambda
folder on the same level assettings.py
- add the following lines to
local.py
:
from .settings import * # noqa
DEBUG = True
- add the following lines to
production.py
:
from .settings import * # noqa
DEBUG = False
DATABASES["default"] = {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
'NAME': env("DB_NAME"),
'USER': env("DB_USER"),
'PASSWORD': env("DB_PASSWORD"),
'HOST': env("DB_HOST"),
'PORT': '5432',
}
DATABASES["default"]["ATOMIC_REQUESTS"] = True # noqa F405
DATABASES["default"]["CONN_MAX_AGE"] = env.int("CONN_MAX_AGE", default=60) # noqa F405
SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ("HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO", "https")
SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = env.bool("DJANGO_SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT", default=False)
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = True
SECURE_HSTS_SECONDS = 60
SECURE_HSTS_INCLUDE_SUBDOMAINS = env.bool("DJANGO_SECURE_HSTS_INCLUDE_SUBDOMAINS", default=True)
SECURE_HSTS_PRELOAD = env.bool("DJANGO_SECURE_HSTS_PRELOAD", default=True)
SECURE_CONTENT_TYPE_NOSNIFF = env.bool("DJANGO_SECURE_CONTENT_TYPE_NOSNIFF", default=True)
INSTALLED_APPS += ["storages"] # noqa F405
AWS_KEY = env("AWS_KEY_ID")
AWS_SECRET = env("AWS_SECRET")
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = env("AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME")
AWS_QUERYSTRING_AUTH = False
_AWS_EXPIRY = 60 * 60 * 24 * 7
AWS_S3_OBJECT_PARAMETERS = {"CacheControl": f"max-age={_AWS_EXPIRY}, s-maxage={_AWS_EXPIRY}, must-revalidate"}
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME = env("AWS_S3_REGION_NAME", default=None)
AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN = env("DJANGO_AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN", default=None)
aws_s3_domain = AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN or f"{AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME}.s3.amazonaws.com"
STATICFILES_STORAGE = "django_aws_lambda.utils.StaticRootS3Boto3Storage"
COLLECTFAST_STRATEGY = "collectfast.strategies.boto3.Boto3Strategy"
STATIC_URL = f"https://{aws_s3_domain}/static/"
DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = "django_aws_lambda.utils.MediaRootS3Boto3Storage"
MEDIA_URL = f"https://{aws_s3_domain}/media/"
MEDIAFILES_LOCATION = "/media"
STATICFILES_LOCATION = "/static"
TEMPLATES[-1]["OPTIONS"]["loaders"] = [ # type: ignore[index] # noqa F405
(
"django.template.loaders.cached.Loader",
[
"django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader",
"django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader",
],
)
]
- update
wsgi.py
file indjango_aws_lambda
folder with the following lines:
"""
WSGI config for django_aws_lambda project.
It exposes the WSGI callable as a module-level variable named ``application``.
For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/howto/deployment/wsgi/
"""
"""
WSGI config for django_aws_lambda project.
It exposes the WSGI callable as a module-level variable named ``application``.
For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/howto/deployment/wsgi/
"""
import os
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'django_aws_lambda.production')
application = get_wsgi_application()
- update
urls.py
file indjango_aws_lambda
folder with the following lines:
"""django_aws_lambda URL Configuration
The `urlpatterns` list routes URLs to views. For more information please see:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/http/urls/
Examples:
Function views
1. Add an import: from my_app import views
2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: path('', views.home, name='home')
Class-based views
1. Add an import: from other_app.views import Home
2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: path('', Home.as_view(), name='home')
Including another URLconf
1. Import the include() function: from django.urls import include, path
2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: path('blog/', include('blog.urls'))
"""
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path
from hello.views import hello
urlpatterns = [
path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
path('', hello),
path('<path:resource>', hello),
]
- update
manage.py
with the following lines:
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""Django's command-line utility for administrative tasks."""
import os
import sys
def main():
os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'django_aws_lambda.production')
try:
from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line
except ImportError as exc:
raise ImportError(
"Couldn't import Django. Are you sure it's installed and "
"available on your PYTHONPATH environment variable? Did you "
"forget to activate a virtual environment?"
) from exc
execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
- create a folder
utils
insidedjango_aws_lambda
- create
storages.py
file insideutils
folder with the following lines:
from storages.backends.s3boto3 import S3Boto3Storage
class StaticRootS3Boto3Storage(S3Boto3Storage):
location = "static"
default_acl = "public-read"
class MediaRootS3Boto3Storage(S3Boto3Storage):
location = "media"
file_overwrite = False
Run Django project locally
- set environment variable with a path to Django local configuration file
export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=django_aws_lambda.local
- migrate database changes
python manage.py migrate
- create a superuser in the database
python manage.py createsuperuser
Then provide a username, user email, password, and confirm the password
- collect static files
python manage.py collectstatic
- run server locally
python manage.py runserver
go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/ and you will see this:
go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/Dev.to and you will see this:
Create serverless configuration
- initialize npm:
npm init
- install serverless
npm install -g serverless
- install serverless plugins
npm install -P serverless-dotenv-plugin
npm install -P serverless-prune-plugin
npm install -P serverless-python-requirements
npm install -P serverless-wsgi
- create serverless.yaml file with the following configuration:
service: django-aws-lambda
plugins:
- serverless-dotenv-plugin
- serverless-prune-plugin
- serverless-python-requirements
- serverless-wsgi
useDotenv: true
custom:
dotenv:
logging: false
pythonRequirements:
dockerizePip: non-linux
zip: true
fileName: requirements.txt
stage: ${env:STAGE}
wsgi:
app: django_aws_lambda.wsgi.application
packRequirements: false
prune:
automatic: true
number: 3
functions:
- app:
handler: wsgi_handler.handler
events:
- http: ANY /
- http: ANY /{proxy+}
timeout: 30
provider:
name: aws
role: arn:aws:iam::<role_id>:role/<role_name>
profile: <your-profile-name> # make sure that you configured aws profile using `aws configure --profile <your-profile-name>`
region: us-east-1
runtime: python3.8
versionFunctions: false
stage: ${env:STAGE}
timeout: 60
vpc:
securityGroupIds:
- <your-security-group-id>
- <your-security-group-id>
subnetIds:
- <your-subnet-id>
- <your-subnet-id>
deploymentBucket:
name: ${env:DEPLOYMENT_BUCKET}
apiGateway:
shouldStartNameWithService: true
lambdaHashingVersion: 20201221
package:
individually:
true
exclude:
- .env
- .git/**
- .github/**
- .serverless/**
- static/**
- .cache/**
- .pytest_cache/**
- node_modules/**
Use Docker for deploying your Django project to AWS Lambda using Serverless
- run Amazon Linux 2 docker image:
docker run -it -v $(pwd):/root/src/ -v /Users/<your_user>/.aws:/root/.aws amazonlinux:latest bash
- install the necessary Unix dependencies:
yum install sudo -y
sudo yum install -y gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel wget tar sqlite-devel gcc-c++ make
- install node.js version 14:
curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_14.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo yum install -y nodejs
- install Python 3.8.7:
cd /opt
sudo wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.8.7/Python-3.8.7.tgz
sudo tar xzf Python-3.8.7.tgz
cd Python-3.8.7
sudo ./configure --enable-optimizations
sudo make altinstall
sudo rm -f /opt/Python-3.8.7.tgz
- create python and pip aliases:
alias python='python3.8'
alias pip='pip3.8'
- update pip and setuptools:
pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
- install serverless:
npm install -g serverless
- move to project directory
cd /root/src/
- install requirements inside docker container:
pip install -r requirements.txt
- set environment variable with a path to django production configuration file
export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=django_aws_lambda.production
- migrate database changes
python manage.py migrate
- create a superuser in the database
python manage.py createsuperuser
Then provide a username, user email, password, and confirm the password
- collect static files to AWS S3 bucket
python manage.py collectstatic
If you get
NoCredentialsError
frombotocore
you should add to environment variablesAWS_PROFILE
:
export AWS_PROFILE=<your-aws-profile-name>
- install serverless packages from package.json
npm install
- deploy your Django project to AWS Lambda using Serverless
serverless deploy -s production
Your response will look like that:
Serverless: Adding Python requirements helper to ....
Serverless: Generated requirements from /root/src/requirements.txt in /root/src/.serverless/requirements.txt...
Serverless: Installing requirements from /root/.cache/serverless-python-requirements/ ...
Serverless: Using download cache directory /root/.cache/serverless-python-requirements/downloadCacheslspyc
Serverless: Running ...
Serverless: Zipping required Python packages for ....
Serverless: Using Python specified in "runtime": python3.8
Serverless: Packaging Python WSGI handler...
Serverless: Packaging service...
Serverless: Excluding development dependencies...
Serverless: Removing Python requirements helper from ....
Serverless: Injecting required Python packages to package...
Serverless: Uploading CloudFormation file to S3...
Serverless: Uploading artifacts...
Serverless: Uploading service app.zip file to S3 (60.48 MB)...
Serverless: Validating template...
Serverless: Updating Stack...
Serverless: Checking Stack update progress...
..........
Serverless: Stack update finished...
Service Information
service: <your-serverless-service-name>
stage: production
region: <your-aws-region>
stack: <your-serverless-service-name>-pronduction
resources: 8
api keys:
None
endpoints:
ANY - https://<some-id>.execute-api.<your-aws-region>.amazonaws.com/production
ANY - https://<some-id>.execute-api.<your-aws-region>.amazonaws.com/production/{proxy+}
functions:
app: <your-serverless-service-name>-production-app
layers:
None
Serverless: Prune: Running post-deployment pruning
Serverless: Prune: Querying for deployed function versions
Serverless: Prune: <your-serverless-service-name>-production-app has 3 additional versions published and 0 aliases, 0 versions selected for deletion
Serverless: Prune: Pruning complete.
Serverless: Removing old service artifacts from S3...
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Serverless: Announcing Metrics, CI/CD, Secrets and more built into Serverless Framework. Run "serverless login" to activate for free..
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Now, your Django Project will be available at this URL:
https://<some-id>.execute-api.<your-aws-region>.amazonaws.com/production
Congratulations!
Here is a link to a GitHub repository with the code shown in this blog post.
If you want to learn more about Django projects on AWS Lambdas follow me on Twitter (@vadim_khodak) I plan to write a post showing how to create all the necessary AWS resources for this Django project, how to add React.js client to the Django project and more.